1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to software configuration and, more specifically, to providing a visual preview of the intermediate steps of software configuration before the software configuration is actually performed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Software products, such as complex operating systems, are often comprised of many interdependent configurable subsystems, and the relationship between these subsystems or components is not always obvious to the untrained eye. Graphical user interfaces can enhance an end-user's understanding of complex software by modeling the system and its components visually. However, graphical user interfaces themselves can be complex to understand without accompanying documentation or prior experience. Explanatory text that explains the software configuration process, while it may be helpful, is often too brief to provide the necessary context and detail to facilitate an adequate understanding of the software configuration process for the users. Furthermore, such supplemental text is typically not presented in a manner integrated to the graphical user interface. As a result, users of complex software have to configure software without the background information necessary to evaluate the outcome of a variety of selections that they make during the software configuration process.
Conventional software configuration tools, if they include a graphical user interface at all, typically utilize a simple series of steps or a “wizard” to accept the user's selection of a variety of configuration options or parameters to configure the software. Each step of the wizard, even though it may depend upon preceding steps, is usually presented in isolation in order to simplify its appearance. The conventional software configuration wizards do not provide a step-by-step visual representation of the progress of the software configuration as various selections are made by the user in each step of the software configuration process. In fact, conventional software configuration wizards are often designed to hide many of the steps and complexity of the software configuration process to simplify presentation to the user. Thus, such conventional software configuration wizards cannot guide the user effectively by illustrating the consequences of the user's selection of a variety of options, step by step during the software configuration process.
In addition, although some conventional software configuration wizards, such as the disk management tool provided by Microsoft Corporation, include graphical representations of the software, they only show the initial state of the software prior to the software configuration and the final state of the software after the software configuration is complete. Conventional software configuration wizards do not show a preview of the software state that reflects the user's selections of the parameters modifying the initial state of the software before the software configuration is actually performed. Thus, there is no way for users to preview the consequences of their selection of the various parameters during the software configuration process without actually committing the software configuration.
Therefore, there is a need for a software configuration tool that provides a visual, step-by-step illustration of a software configuration process and how the software configuration changes in response to the selection of various software configuration options. There is also a need for a software configuration tool that shows previews of the software state reflecting the selection of the various software configuration options before the software configuration is actually performed.